


Like Icarus Who Flies to the Sun

by kibasniper



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Assassination Plot(s), During Canon, Episode Related, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Internal Monologue, Introspection, POV First Person, Past Relationship(s), Reflection, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23974417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kibasniper/pseuds/kibasniper
Summary: I'm someone on the outside looking in to the life of a woman who wishes to be queen, who wishes for the source of her misery to be out like a light,  and who wishes for normalcy for her family.
Relationships: Beth Boland & James Fitzpatrick
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	Like Icarus Who Flies to the Sun

I know the look of suffering. I’ve seen it on every single face of my clients. They’re withered, pale, and have been through shit that I wouldn’t want happening to my daughter.

But they aren’t inscrutable. No, not at all. In fact, most of them are easily understood. A background check later, in which I poured hours into researching, and I know my client’s entire history, along with the path they’ve trekked with the one they want dead. They’re always intertwined, you see. After all, you can’t want somebody killed without a proper reason. They usually share a long-winded, complicated history filled with unspeakable torment and abuse, the finer details bloody and gruesome, and the client will finally reach out to me because they simply have nowhere left to turn, all options exhausted, that little fire of hope ready to burn out.

I don’t consider myself someone’s salvation, of course. That would be comparing me to an angel when I’m merely a professional. When I snuff out someone’s life, it’s clinical and precise, practised and executed all according to the client's will. I need their full permission to fire in order for there to not be any regrets. I don’t need their sorrow weighing me down when it’s time; it might affect my trigger finger.

But you see, my latest client is quite interesting. Her entire life is wrapped around one man’s finger. He could have her killed at a moment’s notice, and her children will be left motherless, sobbing in their arms of their hapless father, wondering why mommy is being buried six feet under because of a bullet right between her pretty blue eyes.

Beth Boland is, in a way, an untypical customer. Oh, don’t be deceived, for she shares many similarities to previous clientele. She has a sordid history with the man she wants killed after enduring several months of playing mind games with him, in which he is clearly the victor each and every time. The target is someone who once saw her as an equal, but when she has been used up for all the money he can milk from her, he may drop her in the garbage bin for the rats to feast upon like she were a pig on a spit at a five star restaurant.

I’ve done my research on this man. He is the king of an empire built upon fraud, drugs, and counterfeits. While she struggles to pay the bills, he lives with riches. Access to a private tennis club, enough money to pay top notch attorneys who will squash any interference from law enforcement, and while he may pat his son’s head, it’s done with hands so rich with blood they could have drowned him.

With that in mind, I thought the job was going to be by the book. It wasn’t until I was a bit deeper into my research that I found Mrs. Boland’s breach in contract.

Many months ago, she engaged in a passionate affair with the target. In a way, she is a scorned lover. In another lifetime - at least, those many months ago must have been a happier life compared to now - there were sparks. A frenzy of kisses and lingering looks, a flurry of touches upon intimate body parts, and perhaps, just perhaps, she believed that this man would truly love her in the way she desired.

This immediately broke our contract. Yes, I suppose it was rather petty of me to ignore her and have Amy deal with her temper tantrum after I gave her the boot with my bill (especially when I know women like her can be quite catty to my ever courteous employees.) However, she had failed to inform me of their tryst up front. As I had written in our binding contract, she was liable for all the costs I spent preparing myself for her case, and since she had broken a clause, I ended it. 

But then, she had the gall to follow me with her associates. Watching me in that little car of hers, her eyes wide and frightful, matching the gazes of the other two women, I almost laughed when I realized it was Mrs. Boland. It had not been the first time one of my clients tried following me, but she was bold enough to stay while I confronted her instead of hitting the gas and speeding off, leaving a smoggy trail behind her.

I suppose I found her quite amiable and admirable. To have the nerve to try to find out what I do on a normal day was rather rude, right? Still, I understand why. She is a poor woman. Despite her fancy clothes and polite, yet stern manner of speaking, she is suffering. Mrs. Boland will not back down without a fight, even when I knocked my pistol against her window, so I suppose that is why I gave her a second chance.

(And she was more than I expected. For someone who claimed to have been bored enough to get involved in a man like the target, I knew there was much more to her.)

I had decided a test run was needed. As I mentioned, I need the client’s full permission to shoot. No regrets, no sorrow, just burning ambition, and God, did she show me it. Despite the terror in her face painting her cheeks snow white under that pink glow of rouge, Mrs. Boland looked through the scope at her target. 

She must have been imagining the life she had shared with him. She must have been thinking about past passions and lingering love. They all do. Once they step up to the scope, it all comes rushing back to them in a heartbeat. Memories flood their heads of happier times, of ways to twist their perception into thinking that maybe they can relive the good days with their target.

“Do it,” she had commanded, her resolve unflappable.

I grin when I remember her shock when I fired that paintball. She had passed my test marvelously. Unlike so many others who wasted their hard-earned hundred dollar bills only to shy away at the last second, Mrs. Boland is prepared to face her life head-on without him commandeering her, without him making her fear if she will live to see the next day or if he will harm her children next, just as he had done when his men ransacked her home.

Mrs. Boland is a survivor and a catalyst of her own undoing. She amazes me, quite frankly. She is cunning and clinical, and yet, she doesn’t know the harsh realities of the underworld. Like Icarus with his wings, she flies for the sun without knowing she will burn and fall, fall, fall right back to the ground, right into her own grave.

I sigh as I think of her. Mrs. Boland is a client I will fondly remember. I hope when this is over, after I’ve finished our contract, we can visit that restaurant again as chums. She can bring her friends, and I’ll invite Amy as my guest, and we can have a good laugh over wine. This time, I’ll be the one paying.


End file.
